"I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page…”

“…and I could do anything I wanted."

 It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally finished CB’s scarf!

It’s really soft and the colours are so pretty and really catch the sun. It’s difficult to photograph the colours accurately but take my word for it!

Something I didn’t immediately notice was how cool the packaging for the wool is. The wool is Possum and Merino blend and the back of the label has some really interesting facts:

The use of Brushtail Possum fur helps New Zealand’s ecosystem! Brushtail Possum consume 21,000 metric tonnes every 24 hours, and native bird species face habitat destruction and nest invasion. The NZ Brushtail Possum population is 70 million, compared with 4.4 million humans.

This is my contact with Possums (other than seeing them as road kill throughout the country):

I’ve been wanting to get this scarf finished as I ordered the wool for my next five projects. Yes five. FIVE. It’s been a test of willpower not to cast on anything else before getting this scarf finished, but now I can jump into these lovely skeins:

Or these beautiful bright shades:

Or these sensible, rich colours:

Mmmmm….wool-porn….



*Quote from Jack Kerouac

"I am not afraid of storms…”

“...for I am learning how to sail my ship."

There’s a much-discussed analogy about life being a piece of music. Something we’re supposed to enjoy while it’s happening rather than focus only on the ending.

Well, Philly-Fans, I feel I’m making the decision to dance along rather than trying to skip the track.

I’ve been living and working in London for about 6 years now. At first it was exciting and fun but over the past 18 months or so it’s dawned on me that I don’t actually like my day-to-day existence very much.

My job is very stressful, my commute is very stressful, and once I get home I just want to sit in my pyjamas and knit. I’m not taking advantage of living in London but I’m getting all the disadvantages. 

So why am I doing this? Wishing away my weeks but being so tired on the weekends I don’t do anything? Never seeing my friends? Always worrying?

Well these are questions CB and I have been asking ourselves for a little while now, and we’ve slowly come to the decision that it makes no sense. This is not how life has to be. This is not a situation we are stuck in. This is our life and we have control over how we spend it.
To that end, we are moving. Moving jobs, moving house, moving lives. Moving, in fact, about 200 miles from where we currently are to live in the north of England. Better jobs with more income, more autonomy, and shorter commutes, in an area known for friendly people, good quality of life, and being more affordable.

And it’s terrifying, my god it’s terrifying, but it’s also really exciting. I’m taking stock of what I have and comparing it to what I want, and I’m turning one into the other.


*Quote from Louisa May Alcott

“Everything will turn out alright…”

“…the world is built on that.”

I have talked at length about the amazing month-long holiday I recently took to New Zealand, but please allow me another post that references it.

As I mentioned here, CB and I had been searching in every wool shop we could find for something to float his woollen-scarf boat. Eventually we found this lovely shop:

And found some rather nice wool:

It took two trips to Fjordland House for CB to finally choose, but I think he chose wisely. He went with two colours – Oceanwave and Pukeko Blue – of a merino and brush possum blend. It has a vague halo and is nice and soft. I think it will make a lovely scarf, very warm and fuzzy.

As he’s a boy and he’s boring, CB didn’t want any kind of fancy scarf. He also made it clear that he wanted a scarf, not a cowl. This was one of the reasons we opted for two colours – if I can’t do an eye-catching pattern at least it can have a more interesting colour palate.

He agreed to the Rimu DK Ribbed Scarf (link here) which I think is a good mix of being reasonable plain and yet has a nice texture. CB also wanted a long and wide scarf so hopefully this fits the bill for that as well.

The wool did take a bit of beating flying home:

From this...

...to this!

But I’ve started knitting with it and it’s all going well. I wanted the darker blue at each end of the scarf so I weighed and split the ball. I should have counted lines really but I’m sure doing it by eye will work fair enough. The ribbing is very stretchy (obviously) so I will block it out to ensure the scarf is wide enough. 

Sorry I don’t have another FO to show you, but hopefully it won’t be too long until I can post the scarf shots!


*Quote from Mikhail Bulgakov

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect…”

“…you can be good.”

Having knitted a scarf for my Mother for her birthday I felt I had to do the same for my Father. His birthday is only 2 days after my Mum’s after all.

I used a pattern from a fantastic knitting blog Knitigating Circumstances (found here) by Kelly Sloan. It’s called Business Class Cowl (Ravelry link to the pattern can be found here) and has an interesting waffley stitch.

The original design used fingering weight wool, but I just used wool I had already so DK had to do. It’s really nice actually, Rowan Summerlite Cotton (colour Ocean), and hangs well.

My Dad does a lot of cycling and horse-riding so I thought a cowl would be more practical than a scarf. Don’t want the ends flailing and catching in something! Mental image of my Dad’s bike going one way and my Dad the other…

I’m starting to plan out my Christmas knitting as well. Might seem a tad pre-emptive, but I want to knit a toy and a piece of clothing for each of my niblings and it can get really dull! My friend Charlotte’s been asking me for a while to knit something for her Goddaughter so I think I can knit two of whatever I choose for my nice, save on wool purchasing. Don’t judge me, wool’s not cheap!

Anyway, I want to intersperse present knitting with selfish knitting, and I want to start early enough that I can take my time and not rush anything. Famous last words – flash forward to me panic-knitting at midnight late in December!

I want to knit another jumper for myself and I’d like a skirt. I also need to knit a scarf for CB (should probably do that next actually). Plus every time I peruse Ravelry I end up with a load more favourites… Who knew that knitting would be so addictive?



*quote from John Steinbeck.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day…”

“…with no mistakes in it yet.”

Another FO (that’s Finished Object to we cool knittists) for you!

I finished this scarf for my Mother’s birthday at the end of April and it’s all blocked and done and lovely. One mistake – well, two mistakes – and otherwise it’s perfect. Well, not perfect, but leave me alone you didn’t make my Mum a handmade scarf. And if you did, well, that’s pretty weird.

ANYWAY to match the scarf I commissioned my cousin to make a brooch:

This is the only picture I have of it as it came in the post all wrapped up and I don’t want to disturb it. Here it is wrapped up:

The scarf was fun to knit. It has a knit slipped edge which makes it dead straight along one side:

And then some easy lace detail on the other side as well as increases/decreases:

My track record with lace isn’t great, I frogged the last bit I tried, but this has gone well. I got a couple of nice messages from Stella Ackroyd, designer of the Border Ballad pattern (Ravelry link to the pattern found here) which was really encouraging. I love how nice the knitting community is! So supportive.

The wool feels lovely while knitting too. I used Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK (Colour Julep) which was lovely and soft. Very elastic though, which made it tricky to get a consistent tension… Hopefully Mum will like it. Hopefully she’ll wear it. Hopefully she won’t see too many of the mistakes…

*quote from L. M. Montgomery

"I believe in dressing for the occasion. There's a time for sweater, sneakers and Levis…”

“…and a time for the full-dress jazz.”

A few bloglets ago I mentioned that I had taken up knitting in the middle of last year. Obviously I have had a few finished projects since then, but I thought I would write about my latest:

Terrible photo, I know. I need to work on my blog photography. 

This is the Paloma jumper designed by Kim Hargreaves in her Whisper book. Isn’t it nice? Here is the pattern picture for comparison:

http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/view-books/whisper/#3004-3004/611

It was quite a fun knit. The detailing is made through rows of wrap stitching, where instead of wrapping the yarn once round the needle, you wind it twice then drop the extra loops on the next row.

Here is a close up of the border, which I think is particularly nice:

This is my first grown up jumper (I’ve made a couple of cardigans for the niblings, and an abortive cardi for myself) and I’m very proud of it.

I didn’t use the suggested yarn (most of the yarns in Kim’s book are discontinued or out of my price range) but I think this drapes well. I haven’t blocked it, I’m not sure it needs it. It’s a baggy jumper, which I wanted. It’s been noted elsewhere that Rowan designs seem to come out a bit large, but this works in my favour. I wanted a slouchy jumper that was still work appropriate, and this fits the bill perfectly.

Of course, now everyone wants me to knit them one too!



*Quote from Ginger Rogers

“Farewell sweet earth...”

"... and northern sky"

(Should really be southern sky, you you gotta work with what you got)


One last New Zealand post to show our route in full:

North Island

South Island

Copyright blah blah blah for our annotated Rough Guide maps. 


*Quote from J.R.R. Tolkien